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nature-notes-2
Nature Notes
Hosted by Dallas Baxter

Why do rattlesnakes rattle and hummingbirds hum?
How do flowers market themselves to pollinators?
Why do tarantulas cross the road?

Nature Notes investigates questions like these about the natural world of the Chihuahuan Desert region and the Llano Estacado. Through interviews with scientists and field recordings, this Marfa Public Radio original series reveals the secrets of desert life.

Join host Dallas Baxter for new episodes on each week on Thursdays. Episodes are written and produced by Andrew Stuart and edited by Marfa Public Radio and the Sibley Nature Center in Midland, Texas.

Nature Notes is supported by Shield-Ayres Foundation.

Latest Episodes
  • Caves in Eagle Nest Canyon, near Langtry, preserve ancient rock art, as well as traces of the daily lives of those who created the paintings.
    In the Pecos Canyonlands, Discovering the Daily Lives of Ancient Mural Makers
    The Lower Pecos Canyonlands – where the Pecos and Devils rivers join the Rio Grande – contain globally significant rock art. But these same shallow caves have preserved much else from prehistory: bits of tools and textiles, plant and animal remains.
  • The Native American culture known as La Junta flourished for more than five centuries at the confluence of the Rio Grande and Rio Conchos, at present-day Presidio-Ojinaga. But La Junta communities were also found well away from the river, including at the oasis of Cuevas Amarillas in Big Bend Ranch State Park, pictured above.
    Dating La Junta: Filling in the Story of an Indigenous Borderlands Culture
    It features prominently in the earliest European account of the American Southwest, and it’s a fascinating chapter in Texas history. And yet, much about La Junta – the Native American society that flourished at the confluence of the Rio Grande and Rio Conchos, at present-day Presidio-Ojinaga – remains mysterious. Archeologists haven’t given it the same attention as other farming and village societies.
  • At the threshold of the Texas desert, the spring-fed Devils River is frequently described as the state’s most pristine river.
    Alongside Landowners, the Devils River Conservancy Fights to Save a Singular Place
    The Devils River is frequently described as the most pristine river in Texas. Flowing where the Chihuahuan Desert blends into the Hill Country and the South Texas shrublands, it’s a luminous ribbon of water in an arid land. It’s also a hunter’s paradise, with a rich ranching heritage, and home to globally significant cave paintings. And it’s an ecological wonder, a last stronghold for aquatic creatures that have vanished elsewhere.
  • Smoke filled Boot Canyon in the Chisos Mountains, during the South Rim 4 Fire of April 2021.
    Can We Keep It a Forest? Fire & the Future of the Chisos Mountains
    Wildfires burn landscapes, but they also sear themselves into memory, and many Big Bend National Park enthusiasts remember the South Rim 4 Fire of April 2021. It began near a backcountry campsite, suggesting a possible human cause, and burned across 1,300 acres of the Chisos Mountains. It was the most intense blaze in the storied range in decades.
  • Chupadero black-on-white, left, and El Paso polychrome, right, are two ceramic styles created by a culture known as the Jornada Mogollon. The culture flourished in what’s now Far West Texas, southern New Mexico and northern Chihuahua up until about 1450 CE.
    An Archeologist Uses Pottery Fragments to Illumine Prehistoric Social Relations
    Broken pieces of prehistoric pottery – known to archeologists as “potsherds” – are striking artifacts. As fragments of painted vessels, they vividly evoke Native American life, in both its aesthetic and practical dimensions.
  • Science, Art & Community Come Together at Alpine’s Wildlife Weekend
    The Trans-Pecos is Texas at its wildest, and, though many of its creatures are secretive, the region stands out for the glorious diversity of its wildlife.
  • A crew with the Shumla Archaeological Research & Education Center consider a Pecos River Style pictograph panel, one of hundreds of murals found in canyonlands at the threshold of West Texas. With cutting-edge science, Shumla researchers have learned that prehistoric foragers created this distinctive rock-art style for more than 4,000 years, across 175 generations.
    In the Pecos Canyonlands, Pictograph Dating Reveals 4,000 Years of Cultural Continuity
    At the threshold of Far West Texas, the Lower Pecos Canyonlands contain some of North America’s most remarkable rock art. Here, where the Pecos and Devils rivers join the Rio Grande, on cave walls, prehistoric hunter-gatherers painted more than 350 rock-art panels of a distinctive style.
  • A northern saw-whet owl in the Nature Conservancy’s Davis Mountains Preserve. Using automated recording devices, and AI software, scientists have discovered a previously unknown diversity of owls in the West Texas range.
    Hoo’s That? New Study Reveals the Owls of the Davis Mountains
    Owl sightings aren’t unusual in West Texas. You might spot a great horned owl in Alpine or Marfa, a barn owl in a farm building in Presidio or a burrowing owl on the Marathon grasslands. And the irresistible elf owl – which, at less than 6 inches long, is the world’s smallest owl – summers in Big Bend.
  • For a host of birds known as grassland specialists – like the grasshopper sparrow, pictured above – West Texas is essential winter habitat. These grassland birds have declined by half since 1970.
    For Grassland Birds, West Texas is an Essential Winter Sanctuary
    Chihuahuan Desert grasslands are the main winter home for birds known as grassland specialists – chestnut-collared and thick-billed longspurs, lark buntings and horned larks, Sprague’s pipits and diverse sparrows. These birds are deeply imperiled, and supporting them is a top priority for West Texas conservationists.
  • Amidst harsh drought, birds that typically winter in the Trans-Pecos mountains – like the Cassin’s finch, pictured above – were absent in recent years. But after this year’s robust monsoon, there are signs that these winter West Texans are returning.
    Silent Spring to Snowbird Surge: How Rainfall Shapes Bird Life in West Texas
    Extreme drought tests nature’s resilience. And birds are a particularly vivid example of how the creature world responds to drought, and to a landscape recovering from it.